Ticketmaster, the country's leading ticket retailer, reached a settlement with the New Jersey Attorney General today ending its practice of sending consumers to a subsidiary where tickets are re-sold for hundreds of dollars over face value.

The settlement also creates a lottery making 2,000 tickets available for purchase at their box-office price by customers who complained about the way Ticketmaster handled the Feb. 2 sale of tickets to Bruce Springsteen's May 21 and 23 concerts at the Izod Center in East Rutherford.

Kevin R. Wexler/For The Star-LedgerAttorney General Anne Milgram announces a settlement with Ticketmaster at a press conference today.

Attorney General Anne Milgram said the settlement also prohibits Ticketmaster from allowing "a handful of brokers" to pre-list tickets for sale on the TicketsNow website before the primary sale.

Milgram said Ticketmaster agreed that the settlement applies to its business across the country -- not just NewJersey. Her office began investigating Ticketmaster when hundreds of fans complained the ticket agency was sending them the subsidiary, TicketsNow, even though regular-priced tickets were still available.

"The settlement is national in scope and it changes fundamentally Ticketmaster's business practices," Milgram said at a news conference at the Izod Center.

Ticketmaster admitted no wrong-doing in the settlement, which requires it to pay the state $350,000 to cover investigative and attorney fees. In a statement released after Milgram's announcement, Ticketmaster said its "activities have at all times complied with all relevant laws and regulations." It also said it had voluntarily implemented most of the terms of the agreement in the days after the sale.

Among the new revelations from Milgram's office was a special advertising deal Ticketmaster had with Google in which consumers who searched for Ticketmaster were referred instead to TicketsNow, where tickets were sold at scalpers' prices. She said Ticketmaster has agreed to end the Google arrangement.

Fans who don't win the chance to purchase a pair of tickets in the lottery will be given $100 Ticketmaster gift certificates and the ability to purchase tickets for an upcoming Springsteen concert in New Jersey, Milgram said.

When asked whether she believes consumers were in effect being funneled to TicketsNow, Milgram replied:

"On Feb. 2 at 9 a.m. I believe tickets on the (TicketsNow) site should not have been there. This is unacceptable."

Asked how they got to TicketsNow, Milgram would only say her office will continue to monitor the ticket service.

Holding a copy of a page of the Ticketmaster website that showed the TicketsNow link, Milgram said consumers complained they were steered to the re-sale marketplace without being told what was happening.

"Nowhere did it say (TicketsNow) was a secondary market site. Nowhere did it make it clear to consumer that tickets were still available at face value, and nowhere did it indicate to consumers that they were leaving the Ticketmaster site," she said.

The deal signed today creates a wall between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow for at least one year. At the end of the year, Milgram said Ticketmaster will need approval from her for any links or changes to the site's architecture or wording.

"We are not going to allow anything that is misleading to consumers," she said.

Ticketmaster came under fire on Feb. 2, the day tickets went on sale for the first leg of Springsteen's "Working on a Dream" tour. Consumers made complaints to the state Division of Consumer Affairs about irregularities with the sale.

After Bruce Springsteen criticized the ticket service's handling of the sale, Ticketmaster apologized and said it would complete transactions that were interrupted, and refund money to those fans who unknowingly completed their purchases through TicketsNow.

The settlement came the day before the first of two Congressional hearings into the planned merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the country's largest concert promoter and venue operator. The merger, announced the week after the Springsteen concert fiasco, has met with criticism from lawmakers and entertainment industry officials.

U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-8th dist.), who requested a federal investigation into the sale, called the settlement a victory for the average person.

"I appreciate Ticketmaster's concessions, but will not be distracted in any way from aggressively pursuing a long term, comprehensive resolution to the unjust ticketing proces," said Pascrell, who will testify Thursday at the House anti-trust hearing.

Fans applauded today's developments.

"I'm really surprised I figured they had done their thing, said they were sorry," said Terry Healy of Summit, a long-time Springsteen fan who was one of the thousands to contact the state. "I'm so glad I complained. Even if I'm not lucky enough to get the tickets, it's a success."

Michael Tress of Ridgefield was suspicious of the Ticketmaster position even as he was happy to hear of the restitution.

"It sounds like Alex Rodriguez' denial, when you're admitting guilt without saying you did anything," he said. "A lot of time you think these things amount to nothing but some complaining and whining. This time it did amount to something."

Milgram thanked Springsteen and his manager Jon Landau for their assistance in the settlement. "They worked with us because they care deeply about their fans," she said.

Springsteen's publicist directed all questions to the attorney general.

The ticket lottery is for consumers who filed formal complaints with the state by Feb. 17 at 5 p.m., two weeks after the initial on-sale. The extra tickets were made available by the sports authority from, the state agency that operates the arena, from the pool of seats reserved for the promoter, artist, venue and sponsors.